Peony ‘Pink Double Dandy’ – Itoh Peony

Product Details

Large, fragrant, semidouble to double blossoms in a captivating shade of violet pink arrive in profusion on ‘Pink Double Dandy,’ an Intersectional (Itoh) Peony. Large, fragrant, semidouble to double blossoms in a captivating shade of violet pink arrive in profusion on this Intersectional Peony. The color intensifies toward the base of each flower, beautifully framing the golden centers. These plants form a compact and tidy mound of foliage, and are perfect for smaller gardens or the middle of a border.

Hybrids between Tree Peonies and herbaceous Peonies, known as Intersectional or Itoh Peonies, are superb, long-lived plants with the large, exotic blooms and refined foliage of Tree Peonies, but with stems that die back to the ground in fall like herbaceous Peonies. Making crosses between these two groups was a horticultural feat that proved remarkably difficult to accomplish. The quest for this elusive marvel began in Japan in the late 1940s with Mr. Toichi Itoh, and was picked up by American breeders. Don Hollingsworth introduced ‘Garden Treasure’ and ‘Border Charm’ in 1984. Rodger Anderson, an amateur breeder in Wisconsin, spent 12 patient years carrying out crosses, finally hitting the jackpot with yellow ‘Bartzella’, registered in 1986. Since then, other beautiful colors have been developed, but only a few have made it into commerce.